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Title: What does the Quran really say about a Muslim woman's hijab? | Samina Ali | TEDxUniversityofNevada
Published: 2017-02-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J5bDhMP9lQ
so Simon it take you back in time thirteen hundred years to the city of Medina Saudi Arabia to a time when prophet Mohammed was given the task of finding a solution to women in this city being attacked and molested the situation was this it was around the year six hundred eighty long before the modern convenience upcoming and when a woman awoke in the middle of the
night with the urge to relieve herself she would have to walk out past the outskirts of the city and into the wild by herself the privacy believe it or not a group of men actually began to see an opportunity and women's nightly trucks and started to linger at the outskirts of the city their identities hidden in the dark watching if a woman walked by and she
happened to be wearing until Bob which was a garment like a coat the men neo to leave her alone until a lot of centuries ago was a status symbol like a Burberry trench or Chanel jackets it announced that the woman was free and a free woman was protected by her clan she would have no problem speaking out against the attacker and identifying him but if the
woman walking out at night wasn't wearing a job if you happen to be dressed a bit more freely than the men you know she was a slave and they attacked her concerned members of the community brought the situation to profit and like so many other social political and familial issues that Mohammed faced during his prophethood he'd turn this particular matter over to god and the various
was revealed for the Koran the Muslim holy book %HESITATION profit it reads tell your wives your daughters and the women of the believers to drop hung themselves their garments this is better so that they not be known and lasted basically the first advises that all women dressed similarly so that they can't be picked out from one another's zeroed in on an attack if not on the
surface this may seem like a relatively easy solution to the problem that turns out it wasn't the early Muslim community was tribal and so deeply entrenched and social status and the idea that a slave would look like a free woman it was not Austin something and then there was the matter practicality how would a slave to her work how would she function of her body was
constricted by a coke how much cook clean fetch water in the end the early Muslim scholars have ruled that a woman's way of trust should be based on two considerations a woman's function in society her role but we might consider her John and the societies specific customs or in another way when in Rome non Muslims like to take historical rulings and apply them to the modern
era so let's do that a woman's way address should be based on custom and function so what does that mean for a Muslim woman living in America today for someone like me first it means that I have a functional role in society a contribution that I can make second it means that while I'm making that contribution and living in a society where veiling is not the
custom and where in fact if I fail it might actually lead to harassment then wearing what is the custom such as the dress parents teens or even yoga pants is not only acceptable it's recommended the weight if that be right after all haven't we all come to assume that a Muslim woman last veil that veiling is the requirements of her faith there is even a term
that we've all come to associate with the most the woman's fail an Arabic term that we've all heard choose whether or not we've been aware of that his job so maybe I missed it maybe the requirement that a woman veil is in a different part of the Koran for those of you who don't know the her run consists of one hundred and fourteen chapters each chapter
is written out in verses like poetry there are more than six thousand versus in the home run at this six thousand plus the verses three refer to how a woman should dress the first is the first I've already told you about the second is a verse that directly speaks to the profits might asking that they began to dress a bit more modestly because of their role
their function in society as his wife and the third verse is similar to the first and that it was revealed in direct response to historical situation early records show that the custom the fashion during the pre Islamic era was for women to wear a scarf on the head cut the film which would be tucked behind the ears and allowed to flow behind the back in the
front a woman wore a tight fast or a bodice wish you luck open exposing her breasts sort of like the images you see in game of thrones when Islam spread through the Arabian peninsula at first was sent down asking that women use this scarf or any other garment to cover the process and that's it that's basically all there is in the her run concerning how a
woman should trust turns out I had doesn't give a bullet point of all the parts on a woman's body that he once hidden from view and in fact it might be argued and it is argued I cannot stress enough that it is argued by many Muslim scholars that the reason dis versus were left intentionally bag it's about a woman could choose for herself how to dress
according to her purse her specific culture and the progression of time and that turned his job guess what it's not in any of these three versus in fact it's now where in the Koran directly meaning a woman's fail that's not to say that the word doesn't appear in the hot because it does appear but when it appears it's actually used correctly tuner the barrier are divided
such as the barrier or divide that exists between us humans and the divine are between believers and non believers or it means a barrier like a physical screen that man tearing Muhammad's time are asked to stand behind when speaking to his bias or it means the seclusion the separation that marries thoughts when she was giving birth to Jesus that separation in seclusion that means that job
that physical screen that needs a job that barrier that device that means hecha his job doesn't mean a woman's veil and yet isn't it strange that what the term actually means Billings screen dot divided away barred separated out these are the very terms that come to our minds when we think of a Muslim woman why shouldn't I we have all seen the way some of the
women are treated around the world if it comes to go to school shot in the head if you attempt to drive a car chase down if he attempts to take part in the political uprisings happening in her own country to be heard to be counted she's publicly insulted forget about hiding out in the dark at the outskirts of the city some men now feel comfortable enough
to assault a woman on the sidewalk for the world to see and they don't care to hide their identities they're more interested in making international headlines they're too busy making videos and uploading them onto YouTube bragging about what they've done why don't they carried diet their colleagues they don't feel like they've committed any crimes it's the who've committed the crime it's the women who got these
ideas in their head ideas that actually let them out of the house let them into society believing that they can make a contribution and we all know honorable women they stay at home honorable women stay invisible just because it was the custom for honorable women to do during the profits time is that true fourteen hundred years ago is the long before feminist where women locked away
behind doors screened off by the else well it turns out that the profits first wife was what we would define today as the C. E. O. she was a successful merchant whose caravan equal that Clara bands of all the other traders put together she essentially headed up a successful import export company when she hired Mohammed to work for her she was so taken with his honesty
that eventually superimposed I'm not sure how many women feel comfortable proposing marriage to a man today and the and Mohammed second life she was no slacker even she rode into battle on the back of the couch or which is equivalent to a woman riding into battle today inside of a Humvee alright and what of the other women early records show that women demanded to be included
in the Islamic revolution taking place around the profit one woman became famous as the general when she led her army of men into battle and crushed a rebellion men and women freely associated with one another exchanged gifts it was the custom for a woman to select her own husband and propose and when things Denmark out to initiate divorce women even loudly debated with the profit himself
seems to me that if fundamentalists want to return current was from society to six hundred eighteen it might be a huge step forward progress but we still have to answer important class if not from Islamic history and if not from the Koran how is it that we in the modern era have come to associate Muslim women with John with being separated out from society secluded and
isolated barred from the most basic human rights I hope it's not any surprise to you that the system by accident for the past few decades the very people who have been given the important task of reading and interpreting the her run in a variety of different Muslim communities certain clerics have been inserting a certain meaning and took those three verses concerning women for instance that verse
I told you about earlier %HESITATION profit tell your why your daughters and the women of the believers to try upon themselves their garments this is better than that that you do not be known and the last some clerics not all some clerics have the added a few words to the so that in certain translations of the Koran that verse reads like %HESITATION profit tell your wives
your daughters in the women of the believers to try upon themselves their garments parentheses a garment is a veil that covers the entire had and the face the mac the press all the way down to the ankles and all the way to the rest everything on a woman's body is exposed except for one I because she must see where she is hot but and the hands
must be covered and gloves because of course there were certainly a lot of clubs back in the desert of Saudi Arabia except at Exeter extender extender on and on and on end apprentice season so that she not be known and the last and what these so called clerics have concluded based on these types of insertions is that a woman only house one function to understand what
that function as all you have to do is read some of the fat was our legal rulings that these so called clerics have actually done a hell of an issue let me give you something a woman need only finish elementary school before she gets married which puts her what at the ripe old age of eleven twelve years don't a woman cannot fulfill her spiritual obligations to
god suntel shapers fulfills her physical obligations to her husband if he desires her while she sits on the mount of the camera she shifts meant Islam has forbidden a woman from where in a bra because proselytized and make a woman appear younger and this calculated deception my personal favorite if a man has an ulcer excreting Haas from the top of his hat to the bottom of
his feet and she liked perhaps she would still not fulfill Machiko Sam what these and the many other rulings just like it concerning women boiled down to its tests the past a women the most honorable among them if uneducated and so powerless not very different from a slave so she remains at home without complaint without a bra ready and available at all times to satisfy his
every whim even if it's to lick his entire body satisfying him whenever he calls whether it's in his band are on the mount of account does this sound like gods will to you does this sound like scripture or does this sound strange silly uncomfortably erotic like the worst kind of misogynist fantasy are these so called clerics and the fundamentalist and extremist who support them truly terrifying
